ISRO closes in on human space flight

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Bengaluru, December 19

The Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) carried out by the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) yesterday has simulated various aspects of a manned mission, including additional weight resulting from the presence of astronauts aboard the capsule.
“All those things have been simulated. It is being thought of to send a two-member team to space”, Unnikrishnan Nair, project director of CARE said.
Nair said while the unmanned CARE was retrieved by a Coast Guard ship about six hours after it landed in the sea, in the case of a manned mission, recovery will be much faster.
“Yesterday’s mission was a suborbital flight and debris of the rocket were falling all over. For safety reason, the recovery ship was kept 100 km away from the area where the capsule was arranged to touch the sea. This delayed the recovery”, Nair said.
He said in the case of an actual manned mission to space, the capsule would spend some time in the space. By the time the capsule with astronauts aboard starts its descent and finally lands in the sea, debris from the launcher no longer would pose any threat to it.
“The recovery ship can wait about 25 km away from the intended point of landing of the capsule and recover the crew within half-an hour of landing by sending a helicopter,” Nair, who is deployed with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) at Thiruvananthapuram, said.
The Coast Guard ship carrying the crew module (CARE) would reach Chennai on Sunday morning. The propellant still left in the capsule would be taken out at Sriharikota, Nair said and added that the capsule with its video recorder other equipment aboard it would be sent to VSSC for further examination.
CARE, Nair said, had touched the sea with minimum force. “Only about one feet of water around it felt its impact. It did not bounce in the sea also after touchdown,” he said.
While CARE weighed 3.73 tonne at the time of lift off, its weight was around 450 kg less when it came down. This was because of the burning of propellants powering the thrusters aboard the capsule (to slow it down during the descent) and also because some parts of the module were jettisoned after its separation from the launcher.
The most important part of the experiment was to ensure that the capsule did not get burnt while re-entering earth’s atmosphere and the module, built with an expenditure of Rs 15 crore, passed this test with flying colours. “The exterior of the module has not suffered any damage. It looks fine,” Nair said. Among the space-faring nations of Asia, China has already sent astronauts to space. With the success of the CARE mission yesterday, India has also made a giant stride in this direction.